When it’s time to say goodbye to Christmas trees — the live ones — residents are encouraged to bring their trees to a recycling center instead of the landfill.

Once again, in an effort to reduce the number of trees taking up much-needed space in the landfill, Four Seasons Garden Center, 611 Cahaba Rd., will eliminate the hassle of disposing Christmas trees by allowing residents to recycle them.

Selma City Councilman Greg Bjelke said the city does not provide a Christmas tree recycling service, but Four Seasons will take the trees off people’s hands, free of charge beginning Dec. 26 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“When I collected them a few years ago, most people took them to their fish ponds [for breeding],” Bjelke said. “People came and picked them up from me and took them to a pond, so at least they went to another good use.”

Bjelke said other than Four Seasons no other tree recycling programs exist in Selma at this time.

“We’ll take them, but other than that, the city doesn’t quite have a program in place yet,” he said.

By next year, Bjelke said the city is hoping to have its own Christmas tree recycling program as part of the expansion of its pre-existing recycling program.

“We’re going to be expanding the recycling program, buying new equipment, getting more bins, identifying more sites,” Selma City Councilwoman Susan Keith. “[Tree recycling] will be a part of it. We have so much to talk about because we’re expanding the entire program, but that’ll be part of it we hope.”

Keith said the details of expanding the recycling program would be discussed in a meeting Dec. 30 at 2 p.m. in the council chambers, located in Selma City Hall.